World's Best Performing Ski Area

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-29/whistler-canada-s-top-ski-hill-now-world-s-best-performing-one

Must be the bubble chairs

I went there this years and highly recommend it to everyone.  30% discount was just a boner.  The place rocks.  second time and it delivered both times.

when did W/B drop out of Interwest?  Its now its own company evidently and I don't recall hearing about that happening.

A 25% increase to their skiable acres on something already that huge is the equal of adding a Breckenridge onto their existing footprint. Fricking huge.  I would assume they would move expand to the skiers left of the Existing Whistler terrain and build another village beyond Creekside.  Last time I was there I skied with some ski school and race coaches that took me out of bounds out that boundary to the skiers left and we rentered near the bottom of Creekside.  it was some really good terrain in there.

I like W/B but the downside is its insanely crowded in the lower and mid mt terrain pods even in off weeks.  When it snows the Alpine sections are great but they get skied out in literally just a few runs and they are huge.  Fat rockered skis make it way to easy for joey bag a donuts to go smear his way thru pow.

Coach Z wrote

when did W/B drop out of Interwest?  Its now its own company evidently and I don't recall hearing about that happening.

Intrawest sold Whistler in 2010.  At that time Intrawest was privately held (they went public in late 2013).    They also sold Copper, Mountain Creek and a few other properties around the same time.

They're heavily focuses on real estate, Intrawest that is.  They were hit hard by the 2008 recession.  Before it, they were by far the largest and most successful ski resort operator in North America.  ASC was in its death spiral, Vail existed, but was nowhere near as strong as they are now, and Peak, Boyne, and Powder didn't really exist either.  

I've skied 3 Intrawest mountains (Stratton, Steamboat, Tremblant) and was very pleased with how they run things.  I'm tempted to visit Winter Park, which they also own and is their newest resort.  Although they are a "real estate company", skiing is definitely the main focus of their business.  The one day I skied Stratton, they had very good conditions after freezing r*in the night before.  Tremblant's conditions were on the icy side, but their grooming team worked hard to make the experience as good as possible.  Steamboat is out west, so nature makes the conditions good for them.

I find they tend to run my perfect model.  Fast lifts, lots of snowmaking (for eastern resorts) are the biggest things.  While Vail goes totally overboard, nickel and diming their guests, and making their mountains into a white collar, overpriced, class stratified shit show, Intrawest tends to allow for people with different price ranges to enjoy the place without infringing on others' experience.  They develop one base area with a village, and leave the rest as is.  Tremblant, Stratton, and Winter Park are set up this way.  (Using Tremblant as an example), Want a base village and resort experience?  Start at the South Side.  Want close parking and a more "purist" ski experience?  Start at the North Side.  

Sorry for the tangent, but Whistler looks like a really cool place, and I'd like to ski it some day.  Preferably when it isn't ridiculously crowded.

Coach Z wrote

Fat rockered skis make it way to easy for joey bag a donuts to go smear his way thru pow.

I Joey related to Box O'Rocks?

It rains there. It rains in Vermont. Why fly all across the continent to go to another place where it rains? It rained when I was there, it rained the past few years when a friend of mind was there. Ok, if you live in Seattle, but, why fly over Utah to get to rain?

Best thing about the place is the altitude. You sleep at 2000, and max out at 7000. You can breathe. But don't expect fluffy powder. Good sushi, though.

Benny Profane wrote

why fly over Utah to get to rain?

Why do you always suggest that everyone go to Utah?  There's plenty of great skiing that isn't in Utah.

snoloco wrote

Benny Profane wrote

why fly over Utah to get to rain?

Why do you always suggest that everyone go to Utah?  There's plenty of great skiing that isn't in Utah.

I value snow quality first. I live for powder. Utah has the best powder in the country, no, the world, some say. I know that I don't spend my time in Utah a lot, due to many reasons I won't address at the moment, but, I go for second best, which is high Colorado. It rarely rains in either place, and they are much closer to the East Coast then Whistler. So, that's why I'm amazed that somebody would fly all the way to Whistler which is basically, twice as far as the other two choices I speak of. You can leave Newark in the morning and ski in the afternoon in Utah, and the opposite on the way back.

I could care less about infrastructure on a mountain, as long as it works. As a matter of fact, I'm boycotting any mountain that has a six pack with a conveyer belt, after this season. Enough is enough.

The same thing over and over. Like a drill boring into your brain, huh

Not a fan of Vail's business model, meaning undercut everyone's prices to put them out of business and then nickel and dime the guests once they come in.  I have no plans to ski any of their mountains for the foreseeable future, meaning when they finally stop nickel and diming their guests and operate a sane, well rounded ski area that everyone can enjoy, not just 1%ers.  Until then, I will try and go out west every year, but will visit other mountains instead.

I hear mixed reviews of Alta and Snowbird.  Some say that they are the best ski areas out there and visiting them is some religious experience.  Others say that they are overrated and extremely crowded, especially on powder days.  I know both are very steep, so I'd like to go to somewhere with less steep terrain and work my way up.  I'd definitely go back to Steamboat again, and maybe give Winter Park a try if it's a shorter trip.  Denver is the easiest airport to get to, and WP is the closest place to it.  If there's one thing I didn't feel like I got enough of on my last trip out west, it would be bumps and trees.  Last time, it was a family vacation and we wanted to ski together, which meant staying on the groomers for the most part.  Nothing wrong with that, just want to ski more hard stuff next time.

snoloco wrote

 

I hear mixed reviews of Alta and Snowbird.  Some say that they are the best ski areas out there and visiting them is some religious experience.  Others say that they are overrated and extremely crowded, especially on powder days.  I know both are very steep, so I'd like to go to somewhere with less steep terrain and work my way up.  I'd definitely go back to Steamboat again, and maybe give Winter Park a try if it's a shorter trip.  Denver is the easiest airport to get to, and WP is the closest place to it.  If there's one thing I didn't feel like I got enough of on my last trip out west, it would be bumps and trees.  Last time, it was a family vacation and we wanted to ski together, which meant staying on the groomers for the most part.  Nothing wrong with that, just want to ski more hard stuff next time.

Ha young lad..You do not know of what you speak... Please hold off on commenting on the above areas and state until after you have skied there..

peace and love

I didn't say I knew anything about either, I was restating what I hard from others.  You think I should drop thousands of dollars to go out west if I didn't research the place I was going to first, and you're the one that's all butt hurt that Hunter did away with the Big Lift Card?  Stop complaining and pay up if you want to ski there.  I mean you expect my family to pay up to ski out west and go blind without doing any research first.  If you read my post, you'd know what I was talking about.  You don't know what you're talking about, so stop jumping to conclusions.

I can't understand how any of those resorts out west survive with all of that "obsolete" natural snow that they get!
MORE SNOWMAKING!

I said natural snow was obsolete in the east as a way to provide the base.  Natural snow is just a treat that you occasionally get to have a powder day.  Except at places like Jay Peak, that's the reality of ec skiing.  

In the West, the mountains are a lot bigger and it's very impractical to cover the whole place in man-made snow.  Man-made is an insurance policy if they don't get enough snow to have most lifts running by Christmas.  I believe that Steamboat can open all but 2 of their lifts on snowmaking, but I didn't ski man-made once when I was there, because they got the goods this year.

The major difference is most snow at Eastern mountains is man-made and the snowguns are the primary provider of the base.  In the West, most of the snow is natural and snowmaking is only used to extend the season or as insurance for a bad early season.  Most western ski areas don't make any snow after Christmas.

It rained in the Village while I was there.  There is 5200 feet of vert.  2k feet above us it was snow.  Your right it rains all the time in the village.

Yeah, rain in a 2,000 ft base village wouldn't concern me at all.  Rain up to 5,000 feet wouldn't cause much concern for me.  You get out there and the top 2,000 is where you are gonna spend your time.  At least a skier's skier.  Maybe I wouldn't make it a family trip requiring groomers down low.

PNW/Crystal was no different.  10 or 15 minutes down mountain at the end of the access road is a whole other climate zone from the base of the mountain (5,000), which is vastly different than the summit (7,000).

Flying out there is definitely harder than going into SLC, no fly out in the am/ski in the pm.  However, you can still ski a full day out that way and catch the red eye home!

I've been to W/B 4 times and it has rained every time in the village.  You only get maybe 8 hours of sun in an entire week there too.  But when its raining in the village its dumping up top in the Alpine section.  The issues is this stuff is not Steamboat or Utah Blower Pow it's thick and wet and much less fun and more tiring to ski.  I've been there always in what is considered an off week and its always super crowded.  I can't imagine what its like on a Holiday week.

The fish and sushi are better than anyone on earth and I have been to Japan several times.

Sleeping is good there with the altitude roughly the same as in LP.  SLC is good for that as well as I like to stay in Downtown SLC.  This is a big issue for me now since I am prone to altitude sickness I learned the hard way so Colorado is out for me.  

The other issue is access from the airport.  Getting out of Vancouver is a mess and it takes 2-3 hours to get there.  No reason to have a car there so the other option is to take a bus but its not at all cheap and if you have more than 2 people you are better off renting a car cost wise.  Sno mentioned Denver being good for access.  I absolutely hate driving from DEN to the ski areas and coming down after skiing is a $hit show of the highest order.  SLC by far wins the prize for access.  Slope to airport in 45 mins and seldom is there a traffic issue unless you get LCC closed for Avy control.

If I was going to go the Great White North and take advantage of the weak loonie I would be looking at more of the interior.  I've been to Lake Louise and it is great and not crowded as there is a limited bed base in the Banff National Park.  Fernie is also very good.  The sleeping is fairly low and but the access is not great.  Snow is pretty reliable at LL.

My company has a thing in Banff at the end of April.  Was tempted to head out and catch a couple days at Sunshine Village.  Delirium Dive  and Goat's Eye look like fun!

They have a Bubble Quad......with heated seats!  Put it on your list for next year Sno!